Gavin Newsom turns on the power at Sunset Reservoir

It was the biggest municipal solar power project when it was approved May 2009.

That won,t be the case for long, even as Mayor Gavin Newsom prepares to throw the proverbial switch today on the Sunset Reservoir solar power project.

Of course, that was part of the intent behind the nearly 24,000 solar panels clustered on the roof of the reservoir at 24th Avenue and Ortega Street – setting a tone for the state and beyond.

And Newsom intends to raise the bar today, announcing an aggressive goal of getting the entire city powered by greenhouse-gas-free energy in 10 years, including wind, hydro and solar power.

The Chronicle

In addition to walking paths the reservoir now has solar panels.

“The mayor wants to push the envelope,” said his spokesman, Tony Winnicker. “If we don’t aim high and push for the limits of what’s possible, then we’ll never know if we can get there.”

It’s a laudable idea, but Newsom won’t be running the city in the few weeks, when he’s expected to be sworn in an lieutenant governor.

Instead, he’s creating a task force and has secured a $250,000 grant from Sidney Frank Foundation to develop a plan over the next year on how to reach the emissions-free energy goal.

The idea may fade into oblivion like the mayor’s tidal power proposal or go the way of his eminently more successful mandatory recycling and composting plan, which has seen the city reach a 77 percent rate for diverting refuse from landfill.

Certainly the Sunset Reservoir Solar Project is a feather in the mayor’s green cap as he heads to Sacramento, where he’ll be a short jaunt from a municipally-owned solar project that’s 12 times larger and slated to come online in the fall of 2012.

The Sunset project spans nearly 12 football fields and can generate up to 5 megawatts of clean power. That’s enough to power about 1,500 homes (although all of this power is going to city-owned building and facilities). The Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s solar facility being built in the cities of Galt and Elk Grove will generate 60 megawatts.

“The whole market has really shifted in the last couple of years, and part of that is through policy leadership like we had in San Francisco,” said Sean Gibson, a spokesman for Recurrent Energy, the company building both facilities.

There can be a price for being first, though.

Under the Sunset deal, Recurrent built the photovoltaic plant and the city committed to buying power from the company for 25 years at a cost of at least $51 million and up to $60.2 million. The city has a buyout option at year seven for $32.4 million or fair market value, whichever is greater, and another buyout option at year 15.

Some supervisors expressed concern the city was locking itself into a buying power at a set rate even though market prices would fall in years to come as more solar plants came online.

“I’m delighted that the city is transitioning its energy needs into a clean energy resource like solar,” said Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi. “The caution that I struck at the time was I think we could have achieved a better agreement.”